


Absolution

by fullyajar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Guilt, Romance, These two just kill me, and the angst, and the angsty smut, prepare for the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 19:30:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3541301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullyajar/pseuds/fullyajar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Clarke of the Sky People. Alive. And alone, heda. </i>
</p><p>Lexa couldn’t <i>not</i> go, but now, as she looks down on Clarke’s weary, sleeping form, she holds back the hand to brush against Clarke’s cheek. It would be comfort for her own twisted, complicated guilt, not for Clarke. She has no idea how to comfort Clarke. Her presence is really all she has to offer. And she knows it’s not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolution

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to have a thing for ‘kiss or kill’ dynamics. Warning: this is not a happy story. But it should give you plenty of feels.

_Clarke of the Sky People. Alive._

She hadn't believed it when the scout returned with the news. It had taken all her power of will to suppress the sigh of relief and squeeze a question out through the knot of emotion threatening to close off her throat. The answer had almost surprised her more than the news. 

_Alone, heda._

The scout had not been mistaken. The lonely fire is poorly banked at the side of a tattered lean-to tucked under a bent tree offering a semblance of camouflage. She'd found it quickly enough, sure and silent steps bringing her close enough to see the drowsy twitch in Clarke's fire-lit face as she sleeps. An overfull pack lies at her feet and a bulge under a mess of clothes acting as a pillow hides a pistol, she suspects, but she's alone.

She glances back the way she came. She trusts her lieutenants to follow her orders, but her lesser subordinates tend to think with their hearts and not their heads when it comes to the safety of their heroic young commander. 

Heroic. She pushes back the sour taste in her mouth. It's a taste she's become accustomed to the past week as the constant praise from the clan leaders and the endless feasts in her honor for her people's safe return brought the bilious sting of guilt to her throat again and again.  

It was a victory. She doesn't deny that. All of her soldiers are alive. The captured are returned to the waiting arms of eager loved ones. The Reapers will recover. The mountain no longer poses a threat. It's more than she could have hoped for, more than any of her predecessors had ever hoped to accomplish. But it is a pyrrhic victory when the sacrifice it required was the lives of forty kids – and with it, Clarke’s trust and the affection she would have someday perhaps returned.

She shakes her head to clear the thought. Sacrifice has weighed down her burden long before Clarke came along with her brave soul and talk of deserving more than just survival.

The forest around her is deserted and silent save for unknown night sounds humming in the darkness. It seems even her protective subordinates honored her wishes to see Clarke alone and finally accepted her steadfast insistence that, should she wake, Clarke would never hurt her. 

The certainty was a farce, because honestly, she's not sure she believes it herself. 

Clarke jerks in her sleep with a sharp intake of breath, and Lexa looks up in concern. She sweeps back a fern and steps silently into the dim circle of light.

Clarke sleeps fretfully. Her shoulders are tight and hunched, her breathing shallow. The languid movements of sleep are replaced by clenched hands and pulled-up knees. She shivers and shakes and frowns as she runs to escape the nightmare. Lexa tilts her head knowingly as she steps closer – she hasn’t had a night without nightmares since walking down from that mountain. She doubts she appears as much in Clarke’s nightmares as Clarke appears in hers, but if anything, that’s a good thing. Perhaps Clarke is better off forgetting about her completely.

She crouches and looks closer as Clarke’s frown deepens over a smudge of grime. There’s new blood on her arms – scratches, a bite – and gun residue on her hands. She wonders if the creature was hunter or hunted. She smiles sadly. There’s no roast pit over the fire, so she supposes she has her answer.

Clarke looks… older somehow. Aged by years in a sequence of days. Her cheeks are hollow, heavy with exhaustion and the weight of leadership. She knows the look well. She holds back the hand to brush against her cheek. It would be comfort for her own twisted, complicated guilt, not for Clarke. She has no idea how to comfort Clarke. Her presence is really all she has to offer. Her approach was silent for a reason. It’s all she _came_ to offer.

The fire sputters, and she looks on with a pitying glance. It really is poorly banked, and it’ll go out in only a few hours. Clarke shudders against a gust of wind that nearly whips Lexa's cloak into the embers. She pulls it back, and her hand holds tight as Clarke whimpers – the sound lonely and foreign in the humdrum of the sleepy forest.

The bitter taste returns to her mouth as the girl in front of her shakes with nightmares and cold.

Did _she_ do this? Did her actions forge Clarke’s nightmares and cause her isolation?

The questions come to her unbidden, unexpected. She’s not in the habit of ruminating on past decisions. She made the right choice for her people. She owes no one an apology for that, and she knows it. Her role is swift action on behalf of her people, sacrifice for the greater good, and looking forward when everyone else’s eyes are downcast and mourning.  The old, the weak – theirs is the burden of regret.

But when she looks at Clarke, her heart twists with it so sharply the taste of guilt in her mouth threatens to burn her alive.

Slowly, she unclips her cloak from her shoulders, leans down, and lays it across Clarke’s sleeping form. Her presence is no comfort after all – she doesn’t doubt that even the few good dreams Clarke may still have would turn to nightmares if she stepped into them – but she can offer this.

Instantly, Clarke stills her shaking. Lexa tenses as the hairs at the back of her neck rise in trepidation.

In a blur, Clarke sweeps the cloak of her shoulders, draws her pistol, and aims.

Lexa’s hand is on her sword at her waist, drawing the cold metal half an inch and crouching down to fighting stance before her eyes have even caught Clarke’s suddenly wide awake ones.

Her hand loosens. Defense is instinct. Attack is survival. But her mind – perhaps her heart – repress both quickly enough.

Even if Clarke hasn’t lowered her gun.

Clarke breathes fast, shallow, and shifts the pistol, ever silent as the grave. Horribly, deathly so. Her jaw clenches and works like she’s chewing on questions, admissions, last threats, and finding them all wanting. Perhaps the threat of a quick death is the better question, and Clarke’s steadfast aim is asking it.

Lexa lowers her hands to her sides in answer. She’d been a step away from raising them in supplication, but her pride held her back. Her chin raises to Clarke’s gaze of its own accord.

Slowly, Clarke lowers the gun.

The silence stretches, broken only by the sound of the lightly smoldering fire sending stark highlights across Clarke’s sunken cheekbones.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she says finally – far too little when there is too much to say.

Clarke smiles bitterly like she knows it, but stays silent, holding her gaze. Then, slowly she turns away with a sad slouch of her shoulders, drops the pistol onto her pillow, and sits down tiredly on her blanket facing the fire.

“You did me a favor,” she says softly. Her hand lands on the crumpled cloak, and she pulls it back instantly. She places her hands on her knees instead. It’s a small rejection, but Lexa feels it acutely.

Tentatively, she sits down, cross-legged, facing Clarke as much as the fire.

“You’re alright,” she says after a moment of tense quiet. Half a question. Mostly a woefully inaccurate observation.

Clarke doesn’t even look up. “I’m surviving.”

She doesn’t need to add if she thinks she deserves more than that nowadays. Her grim smile filled with memories is answer enough.

She longs to ask how Clarke’s really been, but the question sounds hollow and fake. She knows how she’s been. She can see it in the blood she scratches absentmindedly off her arm and in the shadows under her eyes. She saw it in her racing breathing as she slept. Clarke is fighting everything around her – and perhaps inside her – and losing.

Clarke offers no invitation for conversation and merely stares into the fire. Lexa looks around the campsite again. She knows the circumstances of Clarke’s departure, and the picture doesn’t fit.

"Where did you get all this?" she asks finally, gesturing to the pack, the bed, the tarp of the lean-to.

Clarke picks up a stick and pokes at the embers, sending up a cloud of sparks. “A bunker close to the dropship.”

She looks around again. There are no snares or traps or warning fires around the campsite to keep predators at bay. Clarke is anything but safe out here. "Why didn't you stay there?"

Clarke swallows thickly, a glimmer of pain shooting through her features. “Too many memories.” Her face hardens, and Lexa braces herself as Clarke looks at her with venom. “And a grounder's rotting corpse. You might want to collect him and give him a proper burial.”

It’s a challenge, an attack she knows she deserves, but she simply swallows and stays quiet. Clarke holds her gaze defiantly, then looks away with a quick jerk of her head. She pokes the fire again, and Lexa drops her head a fraction of an inch. Perhaps she deserves Clarke’s hate, but seeing traces of it in her gaze hurts more than she expected.

Her eyes land on scratches in the dirt by her feet – not natural. Tracks, perhaps? A map? She looks closer at the lines – curved, detailed, precise swipes from a branch or a finger. She takes in the whole picture, part of which disappears under where she’s sitting, and her eyes widen. It’s a landscape – trees, a river, a herd of does grazing peacefully in the distance as an old buck guards their safety with ears turned forward in attention. It’s honestly beautiful, and she hovers her hand over it reverently.

“Earth,” Clarke says without so much as a glance in her direction, just as Lexa sees the words scratched beneath the drawing. Reading and writing isn’t important in her culture, but the threat of the Mountain Men and their intermittent messages made her own literacy as leader absolutely essential. “As I remember it from space. Reality turned out to be a little different, but I didn’t have the heart to draw Camp Jaha or Tondc or Mount Weather.”

Nor did you have the heart to stay, Lexa thinks, but keeps it to herself.

The silence stretches, but Clarke offers nothing else. She supposes silence is better than more harsh words she’s sure to get if she begs for anything more from her: a fond look, a gesture of forgiveness, any kind of acknowledgement of the words left unsaid between them.

She doesn’t dare. Instead she says: “Abby sent envoys to Tondc begging your return. She seemed to think you'd be with us.”

Clarke freezes at the mention of her mother, but then she rakes the stick through the embers again and shakes her head. “I don't belong there.”

Lexa tilts her head. “With your people, or with mine?”

Clarke clenches her jaw and freezes again. “I can't go back.” The stick catches fire in the embers, and its light sends dancing shadows over Clarke’s already dark face. She looks even more haunted when she’s awake, when her eyes are catching the firelight and somehow looking darker than if there was no light to reflect at all. “Three hundred grounders,” she whispers finally. “Tondc. Finn. The mountain people."

She curls back her lips in distaste. “The mountain men deserved no mercy for the decades of genocide they inflicted on us.”

Clarke looks up sharply. “Even the innocent? The children?”

Lexa pulls back, startled, and Clarke’s face darkens knowingly.

“Oh, you didn't know?” Clarke swallows back disgust, but her gaze doesn’t falter, holding Lexa trapped in the darkness of her eyes. She barely recognizes her like this. “My mom left out that little detail, did she?”

She did. _The Mountain Men are dead, and Clarke is to thank. Please, help us find her. Bring her home._

Clarke laughs darkly and finally looks away. “Typical. She still hopes I stay good after all this.”

Lexa doubts it. Abby’s face was strained and exhausted, but she was unyielding in her insistence the alliance stay alive. The sacrifices both sides made were too great to forsake it now – even if her own daughter had been part of the sacrifice. That’s not a woman who would be blind to the state of a heart blackened with murder, or hold hope for a return to youthful innocence – even for her daughter.

She doesn’t say it. Clarke wouldn’t believe it anyway. “There is no room to be good when you are a leader,” she says instead.

Clarke laughs humorlessly. “Yeah. Just look at us.”

Silence falls between them again, and Lexa studies Clarke as Clarke studies the fire. There is too much space between them. She aches to move closer, to offer comfort, but she doesn’t. Perhaps Clarke senses it though, because she looks up and studies Lexa right back –  taking in her lack of armor, her unblemished face, the simple, single sword still at her side. Lexa’s breathing hitches as Clarke finally catches her gaze and holds it, and she can’t hold back at the pain she sees there.

“Clarke, I'm s– ”

“Why are you here, Lexa?" Clarke interrupts sternly.

She should have known they’re beyond apologies. “I don't know,” she says simply after a minute.

Clarke turns away again, shaking her head with a bitter scoff.

She’s losing the thread of a connection, the small acknowledgement of her presence. Soon she’ll fade away. Clarke will simply continue to stare into the fire and wait for her to leave. Her heart clenches painfully. She can’t apologize. But she can’t stay and do nothing.

She regrets what she does say the instant the words come out: “I regret that things went the way they did.”

Clarke looks up incredulously. She waits, holding her gaze, before her face breaks out in a disbelieving, taunting smile. “That’s it?” She laughs mirthlessly. “That's your apology? That you regret the way things went?”

Lexa clenches her jaw. “What can I say?”

“Say?” Clarke’s scoff is harsh, venomous. “It’s _never_ about what you say, Lexa. It’s what you do _._ ”

No, it’s what she _did_. She can’t take it back – and wouldn’t, and they both know it. “What can I _do,_ then?” she offers instead.

“You can go!” Clarke shouts, eyes blazing. “You shouldn’t have come in the first place!”

“Clarke – ” She shifts forward – the most subtle of movements, but Clarke pulls back and jumps to her feet like the threat of her closeness burns her.

She turns away. “Don’t.”

Slowly, Lexa gets to her feet, eyes never leaving Clarke. She hovers uncertainly as Clarke refuses to meet her eyes, crossing her arms and staring resolutely into the fire instead. The comfort she came to give lies crumpled and rejected at Clarke’s feet, words that matter die before they reach her lips, and she has nothing else to offer.

“You would have chosen with your head, like I did,” she finally says softly.

Clarke turns and steps closer, stabbing a finger at her. "No, I wouldn't have! It's my heart that choses, and I would have found a way that didn't betray you! The trust you'd given me. The trust I returned, goddamnit!"

She stays silent, lips clenched tight as Clarke fumes at her.

“I have nothing left, Lexa!” She hunches like the words twist her gut as she throws them out at her. “Nothing! No people, no home, no destination, no one!”

Clarke’s eyes shine with rage and tears and betrayal as she looks at her – looking so horribly like the girl she left alone on the mountain. Her duty to her people held her back then. Nothing holds her back now – they are alone, away from the scrutinizing eyes of subordinates who doubt her youthful heart and hone in on signs of weakness – and she takes a step closer and reaches out to Clarke.

Clarke jerks her arm away, eyes flashing. “Don’t touch me! You think after everything, I could ever... I _would_ ever – "

“You have me.” The words are out before she can stop them. Clarke starts in surprise, and she pushes on in the split-second silence. “You say you have no one. You have me.”

It tastes like an admission too late, too feeble, and she waits for the inevitable stinging rejection.

It doesn’t come.

Instead, Clarke’s face breaks into a smile – too wide – and she laughs. It’s a soft, high sound, sounding more like a scoff and a sob than a laugh, but she’s _laughing_.  

“I have – “ Another laugh. “I have you.” Her smile is so intense tears spring to her eyes. “I've lost everything I cared about. I murdered people whose name I didn't even know in the name of the greater good. I don't even know who I am anymore.” She cuts off with a hysterical giggle. “But never mind all that, because at least _I have you_.”

Lexa swallows back the bitter taste. She should have known better. She has no right.

Clarke holds her gaze for a second, still smiling, and then she hunches her shoulders as another laugh bubbles up. She laughs and laughs until she chokes on it – loses her balance, recovers – and suddenly she’s not laughing at all anymore as the laugh breaks in her throat and comes out a sob. She stumbles as the tears blur her vision, and Lexa reaches out in concern. Clarke pulls back instantly and falls to her knees on the bed to avoid Lexa’s outstretched arm.

“Go!” she yells as her body racks with sobs and tears stream down her face.

Lexa drops down to her knees in front of her and pulls Clarke close.

Clarke thrashes in her arms. “No! Let me go!”

She’d seen this with Anya when she lost her sister – a running, flailing rage bringing her closer every step to a cliff of despair it would take ten times longer to climb back up than to simply keep from falling down. She does what she did then: she holds on, arms tightening around Clarke and pulling her in.

Clarke swipes up her elbow, and Lexa reels back as the blow knocks her off balance.

She hadn’t expected that. Anya had submitted to her hold, the trust they’d built from years of fighting by each other’s side allowing Lexa’s comfort. In the split-second she catches Clarke’s shimmering eyes, Lexa sees it: there is no trust there anymore.

It hurts more than the blow – but Clarke reaches for her gun, and her heart submits to instinct as she kicks out and sends it spiraling into the darkness. The movement brings her closer to Clarke, and she grabs her arm to keep her still – half defense (her instinct), half comfort (her goddamn heart). Clarke jerks away with a snarl and attacks again. She parries, keeping her balance on her knees at the force of Clarke’s blow. Clarke grabs the handle of her sword at her belt, but Lexa is faster: she twists her wrist and cringes at Clarke’s cry of pain. She’s crying freely by now, bright tracks of tears streaming down her sunken face as she lunges forward again. Lexa defends slowly, allowing Clarke to gain on her. Neither can win in this, but Clarke has so much more to lose. 

The next parry is reluctant. She lets the force of Clarke’s punch echo painfully through her side, and when Clarke throws her weight forward and pushes her on her back, she doesn’t resist.  

She knows what’s coming even before she feels the cold metal of Clarke’s knife against her throat.

She lifts her chin as Clarke grazes the blade across her neck, breathing tightly through her nose. Clarke’s chest heaves with rage and near-sobs as she hovers over her. One hand is on her wrist on the bedding, pressing hard despite the wounds across her arm that have torn open in their scuffle, and her knees on either side of her waist hold her trapped beneath her. Tears well up in her bright blue eyes, and one drop falls with a silent, warm splatter to Lexa’s cheek before Clarke lets go of her wrist and wipes at her eyes angrily.

“This is your fault,” she yells, hand steady on the knife. “They’re dead because of _you._ You forced my hand. If you hadn't betrayed us, I wouldn't have had to – ”

“Yes.”

Clarke pulls back, startled, the knife lifting half an inch from her throat, but the shock passes a second later and the pressure is back triple as Clarke’s face contorts with rage.

“Don't you dare,” she hisses, voice low and dangerous as she leans down threateningly. “You don't get to absolve me. Not you. Not after what you did.”

She has no right, but she bears the burden of guilt. Just because admitting it would make them equal in it, would force Clarke to see her not as an enemy to fight but as an equal in guilt, doesn’t deny it’s true. “It _was_ my fault.”

She feels the wet drip of blood slides down her neck as Clarke presses down and the knife cuts. “Stop it.” Her voice breaks with a sob.

She can’t. Not now. “It _was_.”

“ _I_ heard them choking, _I_ saw them dying, while you were safe with the deal you sold me for!”

The knife presses against her windpipe – too dull to cut through cartilage, but hard enough to make her voice hoarse: “I'm sorry.”

Clarke’s eyes fill with tears. “Sorry doesn't lift the weight of their deaths off my shoulders.”

Despite her resolve, Lexa feels tears building at the back of her own eyes in the face of Clarke’s unyielding pain. She holds her gaze, simultaneously hoping and dreading that Clarke sees it.

She doesn’t know if she does, because Clarke closes her eyes with a sob. “There were kids,” she whispers – more to herself than to Lexa. The pressure of the knife eases as Clarke shakes with effort to keep from crying. “People who helped us, who risked their lives for us. I killed them all. I killed Maya.” The name falls on a sob. “I am _drowning_ in their blood.”

Lexa holds her breath as she looks up at Clarke above her – broken, hollow, and nearly unrecognizable.

Slowly, the knife slips from Clarke’s hand as her body goes limp with a sob. She sits back on Lexa’s hips and swallows back a broken whimper as tears start streaming down her face in earnest. Her eyes are closed, her sobs uninhibited, and Lexa might as well have faded away for all the acknowledgement Clarke offers.

Slowly – no sudden movements – she lifts up to her elbows, then her hands, as Clarke simply cries above her like the world has ceased to exist. Her chest heaves with sobs and her head sags forward, shielding her face with a fringe of hair. From the force of her sobs, Lexa wonders if Clarke has allowed herself to cry at all. Either possibility – Clarke subduing her lonely sobs to keep from alerting predators to her vulnerability, or Clarke not allowing herself a moment of weakness, doing nothing but _fight_ since leaving – breaks her heart.

Haltingly, she sits up fully, lifts a hand to Clarke’s tear-stained face, and cups her cheek.

Clarke’s breath hitches and her eyes fly open. They gleam with surprise and defiance and she thinks she’s overstepped again – Clarke will pull away, push her back, wipe the tears from her face and demand she go. She knows she’d do the same – she would chose to show no one that her heart shows signs of weakness, especially not the one it is weak for. But she’s wrong, because slowly, the glint of rebellion fades from Clarke’s eyes, and with a sound between a sob and a sigh, she closes her eyes and leans into the touch.

Lexa brushes across her cheek tenderly, wiping away a tear as Clarke’s eyes supply more. Clarke doesn’t smile, doesn’t sigh again, doesn’t show any acknowledgement but the remaining acceptance of the soft touch and the way she chases after the pressure when Lexa lightly pulls away. Clarke leans forward as Lexa guides her, and tentatively, she drops her chin onto Lexa’s shoulder. Her arms are limp by her sides as she simply cries onto her shoulder. Lexa’s heart beats in trepidation, but she can’t turn back.

She brings her arms around Clarke and holds her close. Clarke lets her, and cries and cries until her sobs are dry and her body shakes with exhaustion.

Finally, after what feels like hours – a death by a thousand sobs delivered by the girl she holds in her arms – Clarke sighs into her shoulder and stills.

Lexa freezes, her hands stopping their comforting trek over Clarke’s back, and waits.

For a long time, Clarke simply breathes into the crook of her neck, her forehead pressed to her shoulder and her lips millimeters from her skin. She can _hear_ her closeness, feel it in the heat of her exhales on her skin. Her breathing slows, deepens, calms, but Clarke doesn’t move. Neither does she. Her arms still offer comfort – more than she ever expected Clarke would accept – unassuming, unmoving, holding Clarke close for as long as she needs. She barely dares to even breathe. They’ve never been this close, and with the tears passed, her heart is beating fast and terrified of it simply ending.

Then Clarke slides her arms around her waist and tightens them slowly, sliding into her body like the space was made to hold her.  

Her breath hitches audibly in surprise, and she nearly curses herself for it as Clarke tenses, the sound breaking the silence like the snap of a twig sending prey scurrying to safety. She freezes, waiting, hoping, letting Clarke decide to either run or stay.

Slowly, the tension loosens from Clarke’s body and she sighs into the crook of her neck. The heat raises goosebumps on Lexa’s skin, and she subdues her reciprocal sigh. She feels in the way Clarke’s arms are tightening possessively that this is Clarke _taking_ something from her, and turning to sentiment would scare her away.

So she lets her.

Clarke pulls her body against her, and something is suddenly completely different. She isn’t looking for comfort – at least, not a traditional kind of comfort. She turns her face in Lexa’s neck and brushes her cheek and lips across her skin – slow, exploring, every exhale a sigh of exhaustion and longing. Her tears are still wet on her cheeks, smearing wetness across her neck, and Lexa’s heart clenches doubly at the feeling.

Clarke’s lips draw slow circles on her skin – not kisses, but a path of doubting, light touches across her neck and her jaw and back again. Every cycle brings her closer, fastens her breathing, speeds up the rhythm of her hands tightening and loosening their hold on her back until finally, with a sigh like giving in, Clarke kisses her.

It’s a closed-mouthed, tender kiss – the start of something that makes her heart soar with longing. Clarke is shaking – a quivering that looks like crying but feels like fear or arousal or both. She responds tentatively, barely daring to move, desperate not to scare her off.  Clarke’s cheeks are still wet with tears, and her hands are suddenly timid at her back as she kisses her, but kiss she does, with slowly increasing confidence until her shaking stills and the soft mapping touch becomes interrupted by soft sighs of yearning and intakes of breath somewhere between moans and sobs.

This is the permission she was waiting for, and with a mirrored sigh, Lexa tightens her arms, tilts her face, and kisses her back wholeheartedly.

Clarke pulls away instantly, her eyes fluttering open and looking skittishly between Lexa’s like she’s searching for something, fearing something that Lexa’s sudden response reminded her of. Like she remembers who she’s kissing, and she wishes she hadn’t. Lexa swallows thickly, frozen – what did she do wrong? – because Clarke looks like she wants to run.

The girl glances into the darkness around them, and when she looks back, her eyes are dark and shimmering again. A flash of pain slowly tightens Clarke’s features and she swallows against the tears and Lexa opens her mouth to offers words of comfort, questions of concern, but Clarke surges forward and kisses her and kills the words before they even form in her mind.

It’s nothing like the kiss before. It’s crushing lips, an open mouth, and a fierce tongue. It’s a demand, a push, a challenge to submit to. Clarke grapples the side of her neck with two hands and holds her as she kisses her hard and fast. Her nails dig into her scalp at the back of her neck and she slips her tongue between her lips faster than Lexa can even think to open her mouth to receive her. She responds as best she can, holding Clarke tight against her and trying not to frown in confusion at the sudden desperation. Clarke grinds her hips down and pushes against her, and with a gasp, she loses the strength to resist and falls back in the sleeping bag with Clarke on top of her.

Clarke jerks at the edge of her shirt like a command, and Lexa can’t help but follow it, pulling it over her own head as Clarke strips off her jacket and own shirt and bra. She’s barely caught her breath at the sight before Clarke is against her, removing the chill of the night air with the warmth of her naked skin and building heat of her demanding kisses. She grinds against her, mouth open on her own in a near-kiss that feels more like a way to give Clarke an excuse to keep her eyes closed than something to take pleasure from. Nonetheless, they both breathe out harshly at the feeling, and Clarke grinds down against her again, harder.

Lexa presses her head back into the makeshift pillow and moans softly as Clarke trails open-mouth, sucking kisses between her breasts as her hands cup them. Clarke's hips never cease their incessant rhythm as she grinds down on her, taking any pleasure she can as Lexa moans her own. The buckle of her belt knocks between Clarke legs, and Clarke’s soft cries of pleasure cut off with a hiss of irritation. Instantly, she sits back and brings her hands to Lexa’s belt, fumbling with the clasp in her haste to strip her naked.

And Lexa looks at her. Her skin shines golden in the light of the dying embers. Her expression is focused and closed off, half cast in light and half in shadow. Lexa’s own breathing is fast and shallow, but it’s nothing compared to Clarke’s. Her cheeks are flushed and her lips dry as her fast in- and exhales dry them. Her eyes are downcast, focusing on the belt between them, and as Lexa continues to look, something tightens inside her – deep, urgent, and painful.

This is what she’s wanted since their kiss. This is what she was too afraid to hope for since the rejection. This is what she never thought she’d have since the betrayal.

And yet, it isn’t right. It isn’t good or honest. This is _kiss me to forget_. This is _let me drown my pain in you_. Lexa looks up at Clarke as Clarke refuses to look down at her, and she closes her eyes in resignation.

This isn’t about _her_ at all.

Clarke pulls the belt loose and pushes her pants down her hips, landing hard on her elbow next to Lexa’s face as she lets Lexa shimmy out of her pants. Her eyes are still downcast, watching as Lexa kicks off her boots and then roaming her eyes over her suddenly naked body. Lexa shivers, and it isn’t just the cold. Clarke glances up at her briefly, but looks away quickly again - too quickly - and sits back to undo the button on her own pants.

Lexa swallows back the bitter taste and tries to suppress the staccato rhythm of her heart as it skips a beat in trepidation at Clarke’s desperation as she simultaneously tries to kiss her and slip out of her pants. She can’t decide if Clarke is simply impatient for more, or terrified of slowing down enough to take a moment to think about what she’s doing. Lexa hesitates as she helps her, fingers going clumsy and slow and searching Clarke’s face for an answer. Clarke's hands are fast and erratic, her kiss deep and desperate, and Lexa wants to slow down. Gods, she wants to slow down. But she knows from the way Clarke's eyes are shut tight that a word, a moment, a request to _connect_ for a second, will spook her instantly. And she knows, if this is what Clarke needs from her, she'll give it. If this is the way she searches for absolution, she'll be it.  

So when Clarke finally kicks off her pants, she closes her eyes tightly, tangles her fingers in Clarke’s blond hair, and pulls her into a bruising kiss they’ll both never forget.

Things are different after that, in a subtle way she knows she’ll never be able to explain or quite remember later. Her own movements against Clarke’s body are uninhibited, focused, grinding up against her as Clarke grinds down. Her nails dig into Clarke’s back and neck and pull her close as she continues to kiss her deeply, giving Clarke plenty of time to keep her eyes firmly closed. She knows it’s what she wants – it makes it easier, even though her heart breaks when she dares to think about the reason. Clarke sighs and gasps into the kiss like she knows it – an apology at the way things are - the way they have to be. Her heart jumps to her throat, but then Clarke tilts her hips and the moment is gone as they both gasp in pleasure.

Clarke slides her hand down her side, over old scars and burns she hopes don’t remind her of her own kills. Clarke’s kisses had stubbornly avoided the marks of Lexa’s kills across her shoulders. She knows it’s a good thing, to avoid remembering how many scars _Clarke_ would need. There isn’t enough space on her skin for the number of deaths the girl is responsible for. 

Clarke’s hand slides lower, and Lexa tilts her hip encouragingly. Clarke doesn’t need the encouragement. Her trek is steadfast, determined. Her breathing is fast and shallow against Lexa’s lips as she grinds down on her thigh. There is no going back, but when Clarke slides a finger inside her, her heart clenches with emotion she thought she’d suppressed and the silence is shattered by a pleading moan of Clarke’s name.

Clarke’s eyes snap open, but she doesn’t stop. This time, Lexa closes her eyes and pulls Clarke’s face against her neck, because even just a millisecond had been enough to see the sudden fear in the girl’s eyes. It’s better this way, she thinks as Clarke breathes fast by her ear and speeds up her rhythm. It’s what she can give her. What she can _do,_ when there is nothing to say.

And if this is her punishment or her forgiveness, she'll take either one. 

Soon, the silence that had nearly stifled them is a thing of the past. She moans her pleasure as Clarke slides her fingers in and out of her. She groans at the feeling of Clarke sliding wetly over her thigh. She feels her pleasure building, and hopes against hope that Clarke is there with her. Perhaps it’s a pointless hope. Perhaps Clarke’s own satisfaction isn’t the point. Perhaps this is just about surviving – surviving the loneliness, the wasteland – and anything more isn’t something Clarke thinks she deserves.

She turns her face, her lips millimeters from Clarke’s ear, shaking with the rhythm of their bodies – but there are no words to convince Clarke that she _does._

Then she’s coming, and her mind loses its hold on thought and longing and her fingers tense on Clarke’s hips and Clarke cries out with her – a sharp moan of pleasure she quickly cuts off with a bite to her neck that muffles the sound but not the heat of her breathing as her body rocks against her – hard, fast. It jolts Clarke’s hand between her legs and she whimpers at the overload – too much. All of it, too much. She knows it is, but she doesn’t care. She simply pulls Clarke against her, lets her take what she needs – she can handle a little pain amidst all the pleasure. It’s time for her to _give._ She’s taken enough from Clarke to last a lifetime.

Clarke accepts it, and her moans build and build as Lexa cries out with her. Clarke shakes above her, quivering and breathing hard between her teeth pressed to her neck, but she’s there – she’s coming. Lexa holds her tighter, holds until the desperate movements of her hips ease, holds until her breathing slows, holds when she feels the wetness of tears against her neck and hopes against hope that she didn’t make things worse.

When she relaxes and her weight collapses on top of her, Clarke simply breathes into the crook of her neck again, so like before. And so unlike before. She knows, instinctively, Clarke won’t turn to kiss her this time, and when Clarke simply rolls off her with her eyes closed, it doesn’t hurt as much as it would have if she hadn’t been prepared for it.

The fire is nearly out. Its crackling barely breaks the silence anymore, and it’s late enough that even the forest has gone nearly silent. The night is chilly, and goosebumps rise across Clarke’s skin as she stares up at the stars, unmoving. Lexa swallows and waits silently, until she can’t suppress a shiver that runs through her body – and through Clarke’s at their shoulders. Clarke looks over, expression unreadable, and pulls the blankets and crumpled cloak over them both.

Lexa props herself up on an elbow. Clarke jerks her chin like she wants to turn away, but thankfully, she doesn’t, and simply looks up at the stars. Lexa inches a hand over Clarke's bare stomach. The girl tenses briefly and swallows thickly when she holds it there, but allows it. 

“Come back with me.”

The words are out before she can stop them, and her heart nearly stops in shock. Clarke looks over sharply, frown deep and eyes guarded. Lexa swallows, but stays silent, retracing the steps of her thoughts.

Clarke is alone, unprotected. A few more weeks of this, without people, and Lexa doesn’t know where she’ll end up. A by then ceded clan may take her hostage, pry her for secrets of her people – _both_ their people – just like they did with... She shakes her head to clear it. Clarke, she _can_ protect, and her people with her. If she can’t go home, she can make her a new home. She can solidify the alliance by simply walking back with Clarke at her side. It is the right choice.

And right now, it’s the only option that could perhaps calm her rapidly beating heart.

Clarke sighs like she sees her thoughts in her eyes and turns back to the stars. “Let’s just sleep,” she says tiredly.

Her heart beats a staccato rhythm against the inside of her chest, but she pushes it away and pushes on. “You can be one of us, instead of Clarke of the Sky People.”

Clarke snorts mirthlessly. “I’m Clarke of no people.” Lexa frowns in concern and searches for words, but Clarke sighs and stops her. “Never mind.”

A beat of silence. Many beats of her heart, louder every second until she can’t push it away anymore.

“Come back with me, Clarke.”

For my people. For your people. For –

She stops and swallows thickly over the thoughts that suddenly taste like lies.

For me.

“Please.”

Her voice is so soft it almost breaks – just as her resolve has. Because this isn’t about the alliance. This isn’t about her people. She is not a leader here, when her skin still glows from Clarke’s touch, her lips burn from Clarke’s kiss, and her heart beats with longing. With Clarke, everything in her fights to let her heart win over her head, and it has never been so strong, has never had a chance to win as much as in this moment. All she has to do is let it.

So she does: “Be with me.”

Clarke glances over at her again, but just as quickly looks away, looking back up at the night sky like the promises in Lexa’s eyes are enough to break her – again. She’s quiet for a long time, her brows pulled together thoughtfully and her eyes darting between the stars like looking for an answer in her past.

Finally, she nods. “Okay.”

Lexa’s heart jumps into her throat. “You'll come to us? With me?”

Clarke swallows thickly. “Yes.”

Her heart beats in her throat with hope, and her lips pull up in a tentative smile that no doubt shows the sudden simultaneous weakness and strength of her heart – something she can perhaps allow, for once. It seems she was wrong about never showing the weakness of her heart to the one it is weak for. Clarke smiles back – a sad, bittersweet smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Alright.” She breathes out her relief and slides onto her side next to her, her hand never moving from her stomach. “Maybe we can still go see the Capitol,” she adds hopefully.

Clarke sighs tiredly and looks away. “Let's talk about it in the morning.”

She nods. There is plenty of time, and she knows Clarke needs it. She’ll give it. She’ll be _there_ to give it.

After a minute, Lexa closes her eyes and slides closer, seeking her warmth, and Clarke shudders in such a way that makes Lexa instantly look up to search for the sob stuttering for release, but Clarke is still and quiet and her eyes are dark and impassive. It's somehow more worrying than the sob she thought she'd felt. 

Clarke catches her looking, and merely turns away. Lexa’s hand falls limply onto the bedding as Clarke slides out from under it. 

She waits, lost – Clarke’s words so at odds with her actions.

“Clarke?”

There’s no answer, no movement, for what feels like a very long, silent time, broken only by the pounding of her own heart in her ears. Then Clarke reaches behind her, grabs Lexa’s hand, pulls her arm around her waist, and curls her body around it. Lexa moves into the touch with a sigh of relief, her worries soothed as Clarke’s warmth seeps into her skin along her whole body and Clarke lets her hold her.

A few minutes later, Clarke’s breathing evens out, and the tension in her body relaxes. Finally, the fight goes out of her completely, and she sleeps. Lexa pulls her closer, brushes her lips by her ear, and closes her eyes at the sudden calm.

The words come to her lips before she can stop them, the softest whisper of comfort for the girl who has never stopped fighting: “Yu gonplei ste odon.”

It’s the first time since the mountain that she sleeps without nightmares. The first time since Costia that she sleeps with someone in her arms. And the first time ever that her heart beats strong enough to make her think it could last.

But when she wakes, and her heart is still, the morning light is bright, and the memories of last night feel like a dream, she remembers all the reasons why she never thought it could.  

Because the pack is gone. The fire is out. All that remains is the memory of Clarke’s warmth in a now empty bed – and, by the side of the fire, scratched deeply across the faded sketch of Earth, the simple words:

_May we meet again._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Leave a comment please! This story swallowed a whole weekend to write, so any feedback is appreciated! What was your favorite, most intense moment?


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